Resources for teachers
Whether it is a natural area in which plants tangle and flowers scramble or a more formally designed landscape, a school garden can provide both a source of inspiration and a learning resource that can be integrated through the school. A garden offers a direct way for students to learn about the environment and somewhere they can find a quiet place. Many gardens become a focal point for community engagement, a project that brings families and local businesses together.
Pollinators are easy to incorporate into a school garden. All that is needed is careful choice of plants and provision of nesting or egg-laying sites. Pollinators can be the subject of many lessons. The resources listed on this page will help you plan and design a garden, introduce you to the diversity of insect pollinators, and provide lesson plans and other teaching materials.
Smithsonian Institution
Plants and Animals: Partners in Pollination
This resource includes a basic explanation of pollination, flower parts, pollinators, and several lesson plan ideas
NBII Educational Resources
This website provides links to many different sites with educational resources for teachers.
NAPPC
Nature’s Partners: Pollinators, Plants, and You
This website includes detailed class curriculum, activities, and observation sheets
National Gardening Association
Kids Gardening Curriculum Connections: Perusing Pollination Partners
This site contains curriculum for the classroom and plant ideas
PBS American Field Guide
Co-evolution of Plants and Pollinators
The lesson plans on this website are for grades 9-12
University of Nebraska – Lincoln
Bumble Boosters
University of Wisconsin – Madison Arboretum
Earth Partnership for Schools
Pollinator Paradise
This resource will help teachers and students determine if they are looking at bees, flies, or other insects
Pocket identification guides for identifying bumble bees
In the Northeast and Upper Midwest
the rusty-patched bumble bee and other bumble bees
the yellow-banded bumble bee and other bumble bees
In western North America
the western bumble bee and other bumble bees
Guidelines
Pollinator Friendly Parks
How to enhance Parks, Gardens and other Greenspaces for Native Pollinator Insects
Fact Sheets
How to build a nest block for native bees
How to build and care for tunnel nests for native bees
Plants for native bees in the Pacific Northwest
Plants for native bees in the Upper Midwest
Plants for native bees in California
Plants for native bees in North America
If you have an existing garden at your school, these Citizen Science projects may help you use your garden to teach about pollination and participate in a larger study
The Great Sunflower Project
This project involves growing sunflowers and monitoring the bees that visit them. The website includes detailed information on native bee identification.
Pollination Canada
This resource provides a citizen science “pollinator observer” kit and handbook.
Texas Bee Watchers
This resource is for monitoring bees in Texas.
Journey North
This website provides information on tagging and monitoring monarch butterflies as they migrate in the eastern U.S.
The Vanessa migration project
This website allows for citizens to help monitor the migration of Painted lady butterflies.
Websites
Butterflies and Moths of North America
Discover Life
Resources to help study wildlife, including keys to identify bees and butterflies
National Academy of Sciences
Resources on Pollinators
B-Eye
A simulation of how a bee sees
US Forest Service
Celebrating Wildflowers - Pollinators
Häagen-Dazs Help the Honey Bees
National Biological Information Infrastructure
Ecological Society of America
Pollination toolkit
UC Berkeley
Urban Bee Gardens, Dr. Gordon Frankie
Books
Eaton, E. R., and K. Kaufman. 2007. Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Available for purchase in the Xerces store.
Evans, A. V. 2007. National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Insects and Spiders & Related Species of North America. New York: Sterling.
Imes, R. 1992. The Practical Entomologist. Fireside Books, New York, NY.
Children’s book
Pulley Sayre, A. 2005. The bumble bee queen. Charlesbridge Publishing, Inc, Watertown, MA. Available for purchase in the Xerces store.